Cure a hangover with Carl Barât

Girls, drugs, tequila: with all these vices literally on Carl Barât’s doorstep while making music with his latest band, The Jackals, it’s a surprise that The Libertines man got any work done at all…

Carl, it sounds like there were quite a few distractions while recording this new stuff…

Ha, definitely. Van Nuys in Los Angeles is essentially where music and porn get made. Opposite where we recorded there was this clinic where porn stars would get checked out. They were tiredlooking and wearing tracksuit bottoms so it wasn’t glamorous at all. Actually, one of them did tell me that there was a porn-star karaoke a mile down the road that they all did, but, er, I didn’t really fancy it. Another place, a few doors down, sold medical marijuana water. It was bottled water that got you high. And also, to get out of the studio, I had to clamber past a ceiling-high stack of Sparkle Donkey tequila. We had a few nights on the Sparkle Donkey, sure.

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Rock music, booze, weed, girls… we’re guessing if all this was at the hands of The Libertines 10 years ago, it wouldn’t have been a quite as sober experience?

I guess I’ve grown up a little bit. With The Libertines, it was more about what I was doing when I wasn’t recording. I’d come to the studio and they might have said they didn’t need me for 12 hours. On this album, I’ve had to be so hands-on that I had to be there for everything.

Even so, we bet you’ve still got a great hangover cure…

Oh man, it’s the elixir of life: rehydration salts and Berocca washed down with fizzy water, and a massive fry-up with loads of hot sauce. Doesn’t always fucking work though, mind.

Your song Victory Gin on this album [Let It Reign] must be a nod to Orwell’s 1984, right?

Yep, you got it. I read it years ago just the once, but it’s stuck with me. In terms of the prophecies in the book, it all seems to becoming truer and truer in day-to-day life. Communication and surveillance all seem to roll into popular culture. Victory gin is all about flesh and blood in a world of wires and post-apocalyptic dystopia.

What other books have had a major impact on you?

One of my favourite books ever is called The Magus by John Fowles. I always tell people to read it. It grabs you by the spine and takes you on an enormously unexpected journey. It’s epic.

You became a dad again at the end of 2014. Do rock stars make good dads?

Kids are pretty sobering, I’ll give you that. But on the flip side, they make you appreciate and relive everything again. You start to see the world through their eyes. Y’know, if you can make time for your kids, then you’ll always be alright.

What’s the weirdest souvenir you’ve brought back from a tour abroad?

Hmm, I’ve got some fencing swords that came from Glasgow. They’re rusty, but any time anyone has a drink they come out and people start knocking shit off my walls. And every time we went to Germany we’d buy all that illegal shit, the tasers and pepper spray and that malarkey. It would be fun for five minutes and then get boring. Pretty handy for my crime-fighting alter ego, though.

Carl Barât and The Jackals’ album Let It Reign is out on 16 February.

From the April 2015 issue of FHM India.